Prince William Had More Than One Rumored Affair

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. If rumors are to be believed, that's certainly the case with King Charles III and his son, William, Prince of Wales. If the gossip is true, though, William has managed to one-up his father by a considerable margin.

Since Catherine, Princess of Wales mysteriously dropped off the public radar, speculation has been rife. Many believe the narrative around Kate's health scare doesn't ring true. There's a range of unsubstantiated theories regarding the real reason she's gone underground, including claims that Kate's hospital stay was way more serious than reported, that she had a hysterectomy, and that she's undergone plastic surgery procedures. 

However, when William and Kate released a Mother's Day photo of her and their kids, another supposition sprung up — and it's spreading like wildfire. Eyebrows were raised when the major photo agencies in the U.K. and U.S. pulled the photo, denouncing it as doctored, forcing Kate to issue an apology. Still, royal watchers focused more on Kate's missing wedding ring than her dodgy Photoshop skills, and speculation swirled that William had cheated. 

He apparently has form — William is rumored to have had an affair with Kate's now-ex-best friend, Rose Hanbury, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, in 2019. It led to haters on X, formerly known as Twitter, dubbing Hanbury "Camilla 2.0." Christopher Andersen's book "Brothers and Wives" added fuel to the cheating fire with the claim that William had also continued seeing his ex-girlfriend Jessica Craig after becoming involved with Kate in September 2001.

Speculation was rife in 2019 that William, Prince of Wales, cheated on Catherine, Princess of Wales, with Rose Hanbury, Marchioness of Cholmondeley. The rumors sprung from a report in The Sun that the two women had a falling out, resulting in Kate insisting Hanbury be excluded from their clique. It was claimed that William was playing peacemaker between the pair.

The speculation grew into rumors of an affair between William and Hanbury. "I know about the affair. Everybody knows about the affair, darling," broadcaster Giles Coran wrote in a now-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He later claimed he was joking. The rumor gained steam after the gossip account Deux Mois (via In Touch) posted a claim from an anonymous tipster. "This British royal's extramarital affair is an open secret in London and amongst the English artisto set and is the talk of every party and news desk," it read.

Omid Scobie seemingly backed up the rumors in his book "Endgame," claiming the Firm fed negative stories about Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex to the tabloids in return for their silence. He later said that he didn't believe the affair claims were valid but that they would never disappear as the royals refused to publicly deny them. "Unfortunately, if a rumor's left to kind of do its own thing, it can run 20 laps around the world," Scobie told Entertainment Tonight in November 2023.

The royals kept silent regarding the rumors of an affair between William, Prince of Wales and Rose Hanbury, Marchioness of Cholmondeley. However, Hanbury shot the gossip down after it resurfaced following Kate Middleton's disappearance from public life. Hanbury issued a statement through her lawyers (via Business Insider), insisting, "The rumors are completely false."

Meanwhile, the palace has also refused to address William's rumored affair with Jessica Craig. According to The Daily Mail, William was a longtime friend of Craig's family and even viewed her dad as a surrogate father. Things turned romantic between the two after William left Eton in 1998. However, their romance fizzled once William headed off to St. Andrew's in Scotland, where he met Kate in 2001. In "Brothers and Wives," Christopher Andersen wrote that things became so serious between William and Craig that they "staged a mock engagement at the foot of Mount Kenya" — the exact location where William would later propose to Kate in October 2010.

In her royal biography, "Kate: The Future Queen," author Katie Nicholl claimed that William continued to see Craig after he started dating Kate. Craig jetted in from Kenya to celebrate his 21st birthday in June 2003. Before heading to his big celebratory bash, William apparently denied that he was dating anyone, and it was Craig who was seated next to him all night, not his girlfriend. "Kate had to raise her glass to toast the prince from afar," Nicholl wrote.